If I should become

If I should become a hashtag know I don't drink. Haven't since college. I never did drugs of any kind. Ever. I don't take medications and have no prescriptions that would alter my mood. I do not have a criminal record except for forgetting about a traffic court hearing many years ago. I don't speed - ask anyone who has driven with me.

I didn't yell, scream, curse or belittle anyone. I did not reach for anything unless I was told to and even then I clearly asked permission to do so before i did. I do not carry my wallet in my pocket for just such a reason and have not for over 25 years. I did not resist in any matter.

All the good things I have done in this life will be not talked about in an effort to find bad stuff about me. This is what you will be told over and over again. This is what happens when people to justify actions, even when wrong. When you talk about my good they will blame you for trying to paint a sympathetic picture of your father. The weight of the media will be crushing and insane.

I refuse to say it can't happen to me. That it won't happen to me. The evidence is stacked and mounting higher every day. This is a new civil rights war we are facing. More daunting than the first because now we also are fighting the illusion that there are no problems and those that profit from attempting to maintain that illusion. The level of dissonance is incredibly high from unbelief, ignorance, to out right denial and even acceptance.

But if becoming a hashtag means people will finally get it. That we will not just talk, post opinions, defend and deny but do something about these very real problems we have right now. If one more family doesn't have to go thru the horror of seeing or hearing about their loved one in such a manner. if it means you can live in peace and be accepted in this place called America for who you are and not what others want you to be,

I would gladly be a hashtag today. I would gladly die so you can live in peace.

#realtalkwithmygirls #yesitisthatreal #heavyheartbutmadeupmind

Another day; another tragedy

Make no mistake. I fully support the right to assemble peacefully and protest. I support the right to speak on issues that need to be heard, even if they make others uncomfortable. I support the right to create movements to enact change. I support the right of all to live peacefully without fear of being shot or killed for protesting or protecting protesters. I support officers that stand tall and take seriously the oath that they took and exercise it without fear or prejudice.

In no way do I support taking a life. Whether it is a criminal on the street, a drunk behind the wheel of a vehicle, an officer overstepping their bounds, an abusive husband of wife that snaps, or the government executing the death sentence. Understand and empathize, perhaps. Support, no. There are often many other options available to us, that we do not employ.

The tragedy last night is in lost lives needlessly over some fool or fools trying to make a big statement with a small mind. It was wrong, reckless and stupid. Period. The tragedy is in the families that are traumatized by this senseless act. The tragedy is in those that will take this act as a reason to attempt to de-legitimize the protest movement seeking real change. No one seeking real change would of authorized, sanctioned, approved, or give aid and comfort to those that perpetrated this evil. Yet we know that it will be used by the media, by political hacks, by trolls and troglodytes trumpeting their moral superiority in all things in that matter to attempt to silence the voices of protest. As a reason to silence our witness to wrongs. As if our protests were the sole cause of this action.

Don't lose sight of the fact that the protests that you see today are the outgrowth of years of coverups, push asides, legal wranglings, and political grandstanding that has taken our attempts to go thru the system and run roughshod over it. It not because we did not get the result that we wanted. It is the way were victimized a second time going thru their process.

We don't blame every officer in the world when an incident occurs. We blame that one officer and seek information, clarification and justice in that case. That case. We want truth and honesty in the investigative process, not a cover up and the attitude that only good ****** is a dead ****** from those that are sworn to protect and serve. That mentality from slavery, and the Jim Crow era is still here with us, just called a different thing now.

We want order like you want it. We want you to arrest true law breakers and threats to public safety. But not at the expense of protecting those if they are guilty of wrong doing in killing a citizen and demonizing a victim to ensure no convictions of the guilty. We as people of the melanin hue are already all painted with the same brush of your negative perceptions of us as a people. We live it and breathe it every day. That is not just our emotional attachment to a bygone ere. That is our reality 24/7. We are judged guilty before ever getting a chance to prove we are innocent. Please don't use this incident to further cloud your judgement of what the true protesters are really seeking to achieve.

We support law enforcement officers doing their jobs. We support a fair, impartial and unbiased investigative process that is transparent and true. All officers are not bad. All blacks are not criminals. All of us want to get home at the end of the day to see our families. Every day we make it home is a blessing and the results of countless amounts of prayers.

Can we just put down our weapons and talk? Real talk? No BS? No filter? I see your points way better than you think I do. An intelligent person can see validity in more than just their own opinion. An intelligent person knows statistics can and will be manipulated to say whatever you want them to say. But we can never have that conversation if you refuse to even consider my points have merit. It is that all my way and none of your way mindset that has brought this nation to this point in time in its history. Time to do something different. ‪#‎thinkaboutit‬  

Never Fail

The devil has a pernicious way of showing us the problems of our pastorates, the chaos in our church, the misunderstandings of our ministries and draws our focus off of Christ. Once our focus is off Christ we will begin the downward spiral into the depths of despair. Great relief comes to me in understanding that when the Lord sends his disciples out to preach the gospel, they come back overjoyed at the results. Folk were saved, demons cast out, the work of the Kingdom was advancing. And the Lord’s response in effect tells me that He did not send them out to fail. So true with you and I as well, the Lord did not send us out to fail. He charges us to follow Him, and be Faithful to Him. If we just abide in that calling we shall never fail.

How Long?

There is a reprehensible spirit of evil walking in this world today that justifies taking the lives it does not agree with. Gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, - nothing matters but to advance their argument and agenda. The countless violence, blood shed of the innocents and lives lost means absolutely nothing to it, as it is justified in it's eyes. It will not be satiated by compromise or communication, only submission. To that end, these tragedies will sadly continue in various locals around this world until we as a human race stand up collectively against the evil that surrounded us.

How long O Lord? I pray for lives lost. I pray for families devastated. I pray for communities shaken. I pray for innocence lost. I pray for strength for the journey ahead.

The Challenge of the Modern Church Extending the Call

Many churches have numerous associate ministers these days. In this season of silence as I have visited numerous churches even the smallest church has had 2 to 3 associate ministers.There are literally preachers everywhere...both licensed and unlicensed.

When a church pulpit is vacant these days the pulpit is almost immediately filled by a legacy (by blood or work) or a family member of staunch supporters of the church, or a political, fraternal, connection to power brokers in the church. The reasoning is to continue the legacy of the pastor that has retired or passed. On the surface this seems to be the most logical way to continue to flow of ministry at that location. Yet one of the chilling side effects is we often cancel God out of the process.

In effect what we have done is told God that the bride of Christ is in our hands not His. We know what is best based on our plans and visions and we only need God to cosign on what we have authorized.

If it is truly an open pulpit searching for a pastor, some of the craziness that goes on can be anything but scriptural or godlike.This has also been a cause of more legacy or immediate appointments. Bartering, deals on if "I become the pastor you will become my right hand man or woman",campaigning, playing dirty pool digging up dirt on other prospective candidates because "you don't want the church to make a mistake" using scriptural qualifications to qualify or disqualify people for the position, I have seen preachers tear each other down like dogs just so they can one day be called "pastor."

Yes there are those that are committed to do right both in the pulpit and in the pew. Those that are willing to faithfully wait till placed knowing they may never ever get placed, or wait till the Lord sends even if it means waiting longer than expected. I praise God daily for those types that in their patience possess their souls. But that does not change the fact that there is a lot of foolishness and abuses that goes on. And there are both churches and preachers that have shared in that corrosive conditions willingly.

This effectively makes it almost impossible for many associate ministers that believe they have been called to pastor to even get a fair consideration at a majority of churches. They are disqualified before they ever see a face or get a hearing. This then leaves starting your own church or ministry as the most viable option to become a pastor which is part of the reason we see so many more of them in these days in order to finally get an opportunity to pastor, While only God knows the heart, this proliferation is not in any ways accidental.The old axiom in ministry is still in effect that it is better to be a pastor of a few folks than a minister with none.

My point is this. If the church belongs to God, and we belong to God, cant we just let God do His thing His way and stop with all the foolishness on all sides?

When I became a man

Many of you tell me how much you love my positive posts and how inspirational they are. This one may not be so much like that but please hear me out and consider.

For me these are the hardest two months of the year. These months where we celebrate Mother's Day and Fathers Day. They are hard for me because one was never there - even when I reached out to him and begged him to be there. The other one was there but in plain truth was alcoholic and abusive towards me physically, mentally and emotionally - mostly because she saw in me the reason my dad was not with her and thereby caused her to be a single mother. I was punished for what she saw as his choice not to be with her.

As an adult I learned far more to the story than I ever wanted to know. From the letters written to my dad and his responses to me. From family and from people who personally knew my dad and his side of the story. From trying to reach out to siblings on his side as an adult only to have that door slammed in my face, as if I don't exist. I learned more about the reasons why he did not stay from his side. I learned more about the dynamics that were in play at that time. I also learned that even though I had been told she wanted me that she actually had tried to give me away to my babysitter, not coming to see me for days and weeks till my babysitter brought me back to her home (in a different city) and told her she had to raise me. Imagine that news being dropped on you, as an adult. That the one anchor you clung to as the reason you had been in that situation really didn't exist at all.

The warm fuzzies of mom always being there was not my lot in life. I can not remember one game of mine she ever attended. Growing up I played football, baseball, soccer, wrestled, gymnastics. track and field.. Except for signing permission slips and paying moderate fees as I worked off the books since 12 somewhere and made my own money, that was where that support ended. The only extra curricular activity she ever supported was Boy Scouts because in her words she didn't "want me to be like the other n******"

I was not a perfect child, which constantly aggravated her. Never, ever would I claim this. This only aggravated me that I was not accepted at home. This began a vicious cycle of not meeting expectations and requite punishments or disaffection. Which only magnified the negativity of the situation more on both sides. My eventual diagnosis of ASD (Aspergers Syndrome) only clarified how hard it must of been for her wanting a perfect child to prove she had not made a mistake, having to deal with me and my issues.

My dad was just a voice on a telephone. A hero in absentia. My mother never once disparaged him in my presence. It was only as an adult I realized that it was because she still loved him and wished that somehow he would return. She passed more of a broken heart than from the cancer that ravaged her body. To me he was only a number I had memorized in a different city that I was only to call in case of emergency. There were no games of catch. No fishing. No correction or instruction.No how to be man or how to treat women or how to be a husband, provider, protector or priest. He could not even call me son or my boy when we did talk - referring to me as "buddy." After my mothers death I reached out to him a few times, confronted him and even openly invited him to play a part in his grandchildren's lives. Yet he chose the comfort of the alternate reality he had been living for years than to connect with what he deemed a mistake of divine origins

My life was spent running from my reality. I wished to have what I saw my classmates had. Parents that cared about them. Instead i had a father who didn't want me and a mother who abused me. I could never reconcile that, especially in light of the Christian teachings I had learned. It made me a confused, angry child. Begging for attention, desperately seeking friends and approval because I did not have it at home. I was forced to live lies in a community that knew the truth, which made me look like a liar. I never wanted to be a father not for being selfish but I never had one so I did not know how to be one. If it was not for the safety of my cousins that hung with me, kept me company and honestly (in hind sight) tolerated me being around them, I never would of made it thru childhood and the teen age years alive.

As an adult, I became able by God's grace to forgive. To find relief for the pain thru prayer and thru writing. To understand that my beginning did not have to be my end. To deal with the brokenness as a christian and as a man and eventually as a father. To understand that even my negatives as great as they were had some positives that could propel me forward to a positive place spiritually, emotionally, mentally. And while there are many that may wish I never speak of my past only because it forces them to deal with their actions or reactions to keep the past dead and buried, know that I am at peace. I speak to free others, not myself. I am free. I am stronger today because I can share it.

I write this to say to all of you, please continue to share the wonderful stories of your mother and father. Please let the world know how much they inspired you, motivated you, cared for you, encouraged you. For those of us that endured situations like mine, although we may be pained for what we did not have growing up, we are happy that others got to experience the true joys of being a part of a connected caring family. Much love to you and yours this Mother's Day.

End of Year Reflection

I am not one for buzz words, clichés, church speak, formulaic exhortation or the

like so I will simply ask you to pray and consider - what is God allowing me to learn in this season of life? Not just ministry, because we can isolate ministry from our life and it causes us great sorrow. In every situation we are in God can teach us more about Him and His plan for our lives. If we allow Him to instruct us and if we listen to Him more than the temporary circumstances.

I have not pastored since 2008. Before then I was preaching 2-3 times a Sunday, traveling around this country preaching and teaching, serving in various denominational and ministry fellowship offices. Published two books. Wrote several articles. But ever since the title pastor was removed from my name, people I have fellowshipped with, broke bread with, prayed with in my home, talked to thru the night on the phone, helped them financially when they were struggling have basically shut me out. No calls, no texts. Not even a “hey how are you doing” on FB. I have reached out only to have phone calls and texts not returned. So then I say nothing and I am blamed for not chasing someone down and forcing them to speak to me.

I am also keenly aware that if I ever do pastor again those same folks will be the first ones blowing up my timeline and asking when they can come "help" me out and preach for me. I have been chastised by many saints, church members preachers, pastors and internet evangelists because I am not putting resumes out all over the place trying pastor somewhere or starting a church with no permission from God because I am frustrated I am not preaching regularly.

They say my faith is weak, I am failing God, I am disobedient to the calling of God on my life because I am not pushing the issue, etc. - the list goes on and on. Personally I doubt that because I refuse to play the church politics game anymore. I am too old and too tired for that circus. I have been told too many times that I was not called or selected because I couldn’t sing, was not a flashy dresser, didn’t sound like a pastor and other reasons that have no spiritual or scriptural foundation whatsoever. I realize it is possible, but that is definitely going to be a look what God has done moment in my life.

In this season of my silence, God has been speaking the loudest. Showing me who is really for Him, who is truly a support system to me, and strengthening me to not cave in to trends and flash, in order to have dates to preach, or fake friends by my side. In reality He is taking me back to the place I was when I first believed. Where humility and humbleness was the calling card carried. Where knowing Him was more important than where I went. Until I got caught up in the hype and hoopla of trying to be heard, appreciated and liked by others so I would have a place to serve. I moved out of line with Him. And even though for years it seemed like all was well, the reality of it was I was on the wrong road. I had man's approval but not God's. It was not a sin of drinking or drugging, but being out of His will for my life by seeking to make my own way.

Now almost 8 years later He has been sending me to various houses of worship to just be there to hear Him, or to assist if asked. I am always ready to preach if asked and have been asked several times, even by pastors who don't know me at all. That is God showing me He is in control and He has not forgotten about me! I am no less the preacher He called me to be even if people don't recognize it, acknowledge it, or ask me to share in the gifts that God has given me. He knows where He needs me to be and when He needs me to be there just like He knows what needs to be said. My job is to listen and obey. So if He wants nothing more than me to be in fellowship with Him and I never preach again, I am ok with it - because He is the one in charge of me. He is back in control of whatever direction my life journey may take me and I am glad about it.